January 10, 2017

A Las Vegas-based data storage firm has beat out large tech companies for the top spot on the annual Greenpeace ‘Clicking Clean’ report.

Switch received a perfect score on the Greenpeace report card for its commitment to running on 100 percent renewable energy, beating out Apple, Facebook and Google to name a few.

The grades published in the 2017 report — all As — reflect not just Switch’s decision to use only renewable energy for all of its data centers and operations, but its renewable energy advocacy and its green house gas emission transparency.

“The reason Switch was able to achieve this historic recognition is because of the guiding vision of founder and CEO Rob Roy to move Switch to 100 percent renewable energy and complete sustainability,” Switch executive vice-president for strategy Adam Kramer said in a press release. “Rob is a technology futurist who sees not where the industry is, but where it needs to go, leading to his personally designing more than 260 patent and patent pending claims that give Switch its unparalleled energy-efficiency.”

Of the big tech firms, Apple was the winner, placing second behind Switch on the report, which was released today. The iPhone maker received an A in every category except for its advocacy efforts, for which it received a B. The report indicated the company’s clean energy index sits at 83 percent, using four percent natural gas, five percent coal and five percent nuclear energy.

Facebook was third on the list with a clean energy index of 67 percent, using seven percent natural gas, 15 percent coal and nine percent nuclear energy. It, like Apple, received an A in every category except for its advocacy efforts, landing a B instead.

Google, which placed fourth on the list, received lower marks in the transparency category, rating a B in that column, but an A in all the others. Its clean energy index sits at 56 percent, using 14 percent natural gas, 15 percent coal and 10 percent nuclear energy.

Switch, Apple, Facebook and Google were the only companies to receive an overall A rating. In the B category were Salesforce, Microsoft, Equinix and Akami. Receiving a grade of C were HP, IBM, Rackspace, Digital Realty, Amazon and Naver. Amazon, embarrassingly, received a F for its energy transparency.